From Friend to Fan: Benefits of a Facebook Business Fan Page

From Friend to Fan: Benefits of a Facebook Business Fan Page

I cruise the internet a lot. I’m there to search for inspiration, see what’s going on in the dive industry or just to kill some time. Many of the sites I visit often or find most interesting, I can’t resist clicking on the Facebook link to see what’s going on in their community. Now and then I stumble across a business on Facebook that present themselves with a personal profile rather than a business Fan Page.

Whether you set up the FB profile years ago and never used it, or you are under the impression there is some secret advantage to keeping your profile, you are putting your business at a disadvantage.

13 reasons to turn your business “Friends” to “Fans”:

It’s the rule…According to Facebook: “It's a violation of our terms to use a personal account to represent something other than yourself (ex: your business).” If you're not a public figure and you're using your account to represent something other than yourself, you could risk permanently losing access to your account and all of its content if you don't convert it to a Page.” (https://www.facebook.com/help/www/201994686510247?rdrhc) You may have slid under the radar until now, but you draw too much attention and they WILL shut you down.

Unlimited fan count...As a personal profile, you are limited to only 5,000 friends.

Search engine results…Facebook Pages are indexed, which means people will find you through searches like Google, Bing, etc. Personal pages are private, and inhibit viral growth

Privacy Considerations…People don’t necessarily want a business to have access to their private profiles…I know I don’t. In addition, some users are sensitive about being tagged in pictures. Sure, you haven’t had any problems to date, but tag the wrong person and you are liable to experience a major Facebook smack-down. It is better to have a Fan Page where you encourage your fans to tag themselves in the picture. This increase the interactions on your page, which shows up in newsfeeds, which attracts new people to your business…you see how the viral thing works? It doesn’t work that way with personal pages.

Facebook insights…Do you want to know which posts work and which ones don’t? Do you want to be able to track your growth, or know about demographics? How about knowing what time of day gets the best reaction to your posts? Well, you can’t do that on personal pages. You can’t even tell how many people have seen your post with a personal page.

Facebook tabs…While there are rumors of the tabs going away, currently you can have tabs on Fan pages. Do you want to give your fans easy access to your dealer locator (and why would you not want to drive more traffic to your website)? Why not show off your YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter feeds? There is a tab for that.

Facebook Contests, Special Offers and Give-Aways…Everybody loves free stuff, discounts and contests. Special offers are easy to launch, track and manage with Facebook, but you have to be a Fan Page.

Access to advertising…Facebook advertising is a great and affordable way to advertise your business. However, you don’t have access to advertising unless you have a Fan Page.

Admin roles…Fan Pages give you the ability to assign admin roles. Multiple people can be given different levels of access. Limit admin access to staff to prevent one of those “oops, I deleted the whole thing” accidents. Recently added to FB Business Pages is the name of the person who posted to admins. Don’t worry, the name doesn’t show up to the general public

Facebook scheduling...Probably the BEST feature yet! Have you ever noticed how some businesses post consistently? Have you ever wondered how they do it with all the other things they need to get done at work? They schedule several days’ worth of posts at one sitting.

Targeting…You can target your posts to specific regions, languages, genders, interests, etc if you want with a Fan Page.

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"When you are a small business, we know how easily Web and Social Media Marketing can make your head spin. We can help you dive deep into your imagination and make your business a rising star."
- Megan Ehrenberg, Original Duck Diver